• Welcome to Elio Owners! Join today, registration is easy!

    You can register using your Google, Facebook, or Twitter account, just click here.

Tolls and Disinformation

AriLea

Elio Addict
Joined
Mar 20, 2014
Messages
3,862
Reaction score
9,876
Location
anywhere
Just wanted to see what we all think...

I had said before that I thought various groups had been trolling anywhere they thought would cause people trouble, especially in the US.... i.e bad actors abound...
And that we had some of that in these forums, that is, until Elio looked like it had lost it's luster.;

MSNBC-Kara Alaimo-Nov 2022
... For example, during the 2017 Women’s March in Washington against Donald Trump, Russian trolls created fake accounts pretending to be American women to suggest that there was a lot of discord among feminists, to weaken the movement.
.....
A 2018 study found that fake news spread faster than accurate reporting on Twitter from 2006 to 2017 — especially about political topics. The reason is that fake news is designed to seem new and elicit strong emotional reactions.

Anyway, as timemoves on, we all are going to develop thick skins just to survive the wild-west-of-cheap-talk that we call the internet. The BEX may come under fire when a production path comes closer into view. Just saying.
 

AriLea

Elio Addict
Joined
Mar 20, 2014
Messages
3,862
Reaction score
9,876
Location
anywhere
So, why would Russian trolls (or other bad actors) care about something like the Elio? It's the numbers.

Back a few years ago, even before the Elio, Putin had the objective to rebuild the USSR. Crimea was only an initial step.
To do the next steps, he needed to undermind all US relationships in the world. To do that, one tool, of many, was to cause any kind of chaos possible for the US, be it social or ecconomic.

So look at it his way, or rather via his secrete troll farm looking for targets. How valuable could the Elio look from the numbers?

If the Elio could have sold 100k cars on the average each year, what would that mean ecconomically?
(Keep in mind, the fleet size builds up over time.)
So these are the given; (hopefully conservative on each item, but double check my math !please!)

The average car drives 15,000 miles each year.
The cost to operate the average car is 55c per mile.
The Elio's cost-per-mile would have been half of that, saving about $4,125 each year per Elio driven.

The yearly attrition rate is 15% of the fleet each year for 12 years, but it is a progressive rate. Something like this;
Cars still driven each year, starting with 100k;
97k, 92.2k, 85.7k, 76.3k, 64.8k, 53.8k, 44.1k, 35.7k, 28.6k, 22.6k, 17.6k.

So this is the saving, by year;
(.001% of GDP is a significant amount worth political attention)
Year Savings %of GDP - Active Fleet
1 $412,500,000 .0018% - 100k
2 $812,625,000 .0035% - 197k
3 $1,192,743,750 .0052% - 289k
4 $1,546,254,188 .0067% - 374k
5 $1,860,876,414 .0081% - 451k
6 $2,128,304,771 .0093% - 516k
7 $2,350,269,436 .0102% - 570k
8 $2,532,281,548 .0110% - 614k
9 $2,679,710,521 .0117% - 650k
10 $2,797,651,867 .0122% - 678k
11 $2,890,825,497 .0126% - 701k
12 $2,963,502,223 .0129% - 718k
Total $24,167,545,215 .1051%

So, if you wanted to give the US trouble, would you want the Elio built and sold in America?
It was probably worth at least one troll account in my opinion, even just looking at the first year savings alone.

That Russian troll farm had hundreds of thousands of troll accounts. Even some robotic or AI.
Back in the day, I got suspicious about 1 to 3 of the accounts with oddly negative content, and some slightly off grammer.

One more thing. Russia WANTS ecconomic dependency on thier oil. Ecconomy cars and EV's are on thier hit-list.
Also...Russia is yet to produce its own EVs
 
Last edited:

Rickb

Elio Addict
Joined
Apr 20, 2014
Messages
7,082
Reaction score
13,959
Trolls? Heck, I was a real deal Elio fan and reservationist for years and accused of being a Troll when questioning many Elio Motors missed R&D planning target dates and their inability to meet the promise of completed prototype vehicles for test drive events, while spending $141+ Million, and having 65,000 reservationists locked in, that believed in the <$10K Elio was even possible. I was thinking $15K would be an amazing accomplishment. EM was highly successful Elio Marketing campaign. That’s all it was. Russian’s could have been a future world wide Elio target market demographic. The average Russian family has interest in affordable high mileage vehicles too.
 

AriLea

Elio Addict
Joined
Mar 20, 2014
Messages
3,862
Reaction score
9,876
Location
anywhere
Trolls? Heck, I was a real deal Elio fan and reservationist for years and accused of being a Troll when questioning many Elio Motors missed R&D planning target dates and their inability to meet the promise of completed prototype vehicles for test drive events, while spending $141+ Million, and having 65,000 reservationists locked in, that believed in the <$10K Elio was even possible. I was thinking $15K would be an amazing accomplishment. EM was highly successful Elio Marketing campaign. That’s all it was. Russian’s could have been a future world wide Elio target market demographic. The average Russian family has interest in affordable high mileage vehicles too.
YOU aren't one of those two. Your complaints were always honest with real reasoning behind them. No these were real dog-whistling without substance backing them up. They'er tactics were to add simple emotional energy to any cracks in the system. But no real contribution of any substance. Just echoing or poking in what-ever tropes that seemed to gain traction.

If the Russians were interested in such things, they would want to build it themselves. In fact there has been more success around such minimum-motoring in Russia, for Russians, than here. And in that, they are not afraid of American competition, not until after the Elio were in major sales, and ready to go international. They would not consider the Elio helpful to their own closed/controlled markets. They only let in what they want to. There is no NAFTA for them.

No, this is/was just about making Americans unhappy, where-ever possible. Creating simple heat. I had a friend, long gone now, once in the actual CIA. Public manipulation techniques are part-and-parcel of strategic 'counterintelligence' considerations. Radio-Free-America did that all the time. (yea-sure, with good intent). And Putin is, as well as the old KGB was, painfully aware of such tactics. This is why it is so very dear to them to control social media in Russia and China. They feel they have an advantage in social media and they have been experimenting with it to see just how much. And true or not, they feel they have had some success.

People are very loose with the word 'troll'. But what it should mean is someone fishing for a person who reacts to some kick-in-the-pants. And when they find them, they try to enable them. You know, be their dysfunctional enabler, rev'em up and let them back into the wild.
1% effort can give a 1000 fold result+, in the right venue. It's sometimes a lot of result for very little effort.
 
Last edited:

JEBar

Administrator
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Joined
Aug 24, 2014
Messages
7,278
Reaction score
18,105
Location
Wake County, NC
internet "Trolls" are still very much with us .... they have been an issue we've had to deal with from the earliest days of this forum .... some would join just to create hard feelings and bait members into heated exchanges .... we still get a few of them every once in a while but nowhere near the numbers that we had when things started going bad for Elio .... most now are pushing adult websites, various drugs, amazing land deals, etc .... I've declined 3 such applications in the last two days
 

RSchneider

Elio Addict
Joined
Jan 6, 2017
Messages
2,792
Reaction score
1,912
Location
Hellertown, PA
Russian Trolls have failed. Recent news from Elio Motors:

The automotive landscape has changed significantly, and Elio Motors currently believes it is better to develop an electric powered Elio first, and then potentially launch a gas Elio second based on demand.
So, Elio will make the EV version first and then the Gas one (if there's enough demand).


Also, it was announced:
The Elio is still in development, and we do not expect to start delivering to customers until 2023.
Next year they will be delivering the EV Elio.

Since the OP has been using Elio numbers from the past, we are required to use them today. Russian trolls failed and we will see Elio's on the road within 12 months. After that the gas one will be available unless people just shun that model. Last thing we want is to just cherry pick the info we think is true and throw the rest away.

BTW: Elio is past due on their latest SEC filing. This has to be because they are so busy getting the Elio-E ready for delivery to customers.
 

Mel

Elio Addict
Joined
Nov 24, 2015
Messages
670
Reaction score
1,310
Location
North Texas
Russian Trolls have failed. Recent news from Elio Motors:
Next year they will be delivering the EV Elio.
BTW: Elio is past due on their latest SEC filing. This has to be because they are so busy getting the Elio-E ready for delivery to customers.
You bet. I'm not rushing just yet. It'll probably be late next year before my gas version gets here.
 

RSchneider

Elio Addict
Joined
Jan 6, 2017
Messages
2,792
Reaction score
1,912
Location
Hellertown, PA
You bet. I'm not rushing just yet. It'll probably be late next year before my gas version gets here.
I'm only going by what the boss (Paul) says. When he says that gas will cost $7450 and give up to 84 mpg, then I have to believe for the EV, $14,900 and 3+ days commuting with a release in 12 months, he must be right. The GDP numbers calculated are also correct. I like that I can drive 3+ days with no recharge. That will make it much easier for me as I will not have to keep it plugged in all of the time.
 

AriLea

Elio Addict
Joined
Mar 20, 2014
Messages
3,862
Reaction score
9,876
Location
anywhere
Bout the only observaton I can say for the current E-EV, it does not take as much infrastructure to manufacture. That is to say, that engine was an Elio special engine. And the EV parts will not be custom to only Elio. The assembly of an EV is a bit more flexible than an ICE-centric vehicle.
 
Top Bottom